AS part of its efforts to address the challenge of scarcity of Dual Purpose Kerosene (DPK) otherwise called kerosene, the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC) said the Corporation’s three refineries in Kaduna, Port Harcourt and Warri have resumed production of kerosene and Automotive Gas Oil (AGO), otherwise called diesel.
The corporation stated in a statement signed by Ndu Ughamadu, Group General Manager (GGM), and made available to Tribune Online on Wednesday that the resumption of refining of AGO and DPK is expected to balance the disequilibrium in demand and supply of the white products being experienced in recent times in parts of the country.
Speaking on the production level of the Warri refinery, the Managing Director of the Warri Refining and Petrochemical Company (WRPC), Engr Solomon Ladenegan, said the plant had been doing well since the Crude Distillation Unit (CDU) was revved up on Saturday, 7 January, 2017.
Ladenegan said the refinery resumed production last Saturday at about 10:22hrs, with the plant’s CDU functioning.
He stated that the plant now refines two million litres of kerosene and three million litres of diesel daily.
“This morning, we have pumped the products to PPMC and they have started loading. They are going to load up to one million litres of DPK and AGO. The products are there in the tank and we are doing everything to get them to the market,” Engr Ladenegan said.
On his part, the Managing Director of the Port Harcourt Refining Company (PHRC), Dr Bafred Enjugu, said Port Harcourt Refinery was producing three million litres of AGO daily, in addition to millions of DPK being churned out by the refinery daily.
Enjugu enthused that his operators were thrilled having rehabilitated the old Port Harcourt Refinery where production of AGO was being carried out by themselves without foreign expertise deployment.
Meanwhile, the Kaduna Refinery has also roared into action, producing millions of litres of white products to ease out the situation in supply and distribution of petroleum products nationwide.
An independent marketer, Alhaji Abubakar Usman Yahaya, of Yamoyus Nigeria Ltd, who was at the PHRC Depot for loading, described the refinery and the depot environment as positive, affirming that he and his co-marketers had access to PMS, AGO and DPK in sufficient quantities.
“I think this is because the refinery has started working,” Alhaji Yahaya stated, according to the statement.
Beside the products from the refineries, NNPC has made arrangements for additional supply intervention through direct import of PMS, AGO and DPK to sustain products availability across the country.
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